Russia Promises New Air Defenses for Syria, Won’t Say Which Type

In the immediate aftermath of Trump’s Syria strikes on April 14th the Russian defense ministry announced it was, as a result, considering arming the Syrians with S-300 long-range air defense systems. A week later the Russian foreign minister Lavrov communicated Russia no longer felt obligated to deny Syria such weapons in consideration of other states, but said Moscow was still mulling actually delivering the S-300s. Now the Russian defense ministry has positively promised new anti-air defenses with the training to use them but has not clarified whether this will be the aforementioned S-300 or something less formidable.

Moscow sure loves to keep us in suspense

Syria will receive new missile defense systems in the near future and Russian experts will teach Syrians to use them, Head of the Main Operations Department at Russia’s General Staff Colonel General Sergei Rudskoi said at a briefing on Wednesday.

“Russian experts will continue to train Syrian military servicemen, particularly teaching them to use the new missile defense systems that are planned to be delivered to Syria in the near future,” he said.

However, the general did not reveal any details concerning those missile systems.

Rudskoi said earlier that Russia was ready to review the possibility of providing the S-300 systems to Damascus following the air strikes carried out by the United States, the United Kingdom and France.

According to Rudskoi, most of the missiles fired by the three countries were destroyed by the S-125, Osa and Kvadrat missile systems, which were designed in the Soviet Union about 40 years ago but were upgraded with the assistance of Russian experts.

“Syria’s Defense Ministry has thoroughly analyzed the outcome of the missile attack and ordered a number of changes to be made in order to improve the country’s missile defenses,” the Russian general pointed out.